The Cursed Blade

Episode 11 Black Water Rising

The horn sounded twice more before dawn, each time a little closer. We did not stop again until the sky began to lighten to a dull grey. Veyran found a narrow cut between two ridges where the trees grew thick enough to hide the horse. He dismounted and tied the reins, then turned to me.

“We rest here until full light. The horse needs it. So do you.”

I slid down without help this time, though my knees still trembled when they took my weight. The cut across my ribs had crusted over, but every breath pulled at it. The bond sat quiet for the moment, heavy and watchful.

I sat with my back against a tree and pulled the cursed blade into my lap. The black lines in the metal looked dull in the grey light. I ran a thumb along the flat of it, careful of the edge.

The Blade spoke almost gently.

“You are tiring. The body is not keeping pace with what I need.”

“Then stop needing so much,” I muttered.

Veyran crouched nearby, checking the edge of his axe. He did not look up when he spoke.

“It will not stop. The closer we draw to the sealed gates, the more the old purpose wakes. You will start seeing pieces of what the last king saw. Memories that are not yours. Some of them will try to stay.”

I stared at him. “You knew that would happen.”

“I suspected. The records are incomplete, but every host who carried the blade for more than a few days began to lose pieces of themselves. Some recovered after the work was done. Most did not.” He finally looked at me. “I told you the truth in the valley. Alone, the bond will hollow you out. With direction, there is a chance you remain yourself when it is finished.”

The words sat between us like another weight. I wanted to argue. I did not have the strength.

A fragment of something that was not memory flickered behind my eyes—black towers under a red sky, the same vision I had seen the moment I first touched the blade. This time it lasted longer. I saw a man in dark armour on his knees, the cursed blade driven into the stone in front of him, blood running from his mouth as he tried to speak. Then it was gone.

I sucked in a sharp breath. The bond pulsed once, almost apologetic.

Veyran watched my face. “It has begun.”

I did not answer. My hands had gone cold around the hilt. For a moment I reached for the name of the last village I had worked in before the shrine—the place with the crooked bridge and the woman who sold dried fish. The name slipped sideways and vanished. I knew the bridge. I knew the smell of the fish. But the name itself was simply gone, as if a clean hole had been cut in its place. A few heartbeats later it drifted back, but the gap it left behind lingered like a bruise.

Something of mine had been measured and set aside.

We moved again when the light strengthened. The terrain grew steeper. The trees thinned. In the far distance the northern mountains rose like a wall of dark stone, their peaks lost in cloud. The bond reacted to the sight. The heat behind my ribs sharpened into something almost eager.

By midday my vision kept narrowing at the edges. Twice I swayed in the saddle and had to lock my arm tighter around Veyran’s waist to stay on the horse. He said nothing, but he slowed the pace.

In the afternoon the broken-gate riders showed themselves for the first time since the camp. Three of them, moving along a high ridge to the east, black cloaks clear against the pale sky. They did not ride down. They only watched, then turned and disappeared.

Veyran’s jaw tightened. “They are herding us. Keeping us on the path they want.”

“Toward the gates?”

“Or toward something worse that waits near them.” He glanced back at me. “Can you still fight if it comes to it?”

I looked down at the cursed blade resting against my thigh. The black lines glowed faintly even in daylight now.

“I can fight,” I said. “I just do not know how much of me will be left afterward.”

The bond pulsed hard in answer, as if it had already deci

ded the answer for itself.